6 — Monday, February 17, 2020
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

WHISPER

SUBMIT A 
WHISPER

By John R. O’Brien
©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/17/20

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

02/17/20

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Monday, February 17, 2020

ACROSS
1 Weed whackers
5 Annoy
9 Macbeth, by birth
13 Saintly glows
15 Impressionist
16 Lola’s nightclub, 
in song
17 Like an old joke
18 Wind that’s worth 
a warning
19 Idi of Uganda
20 Deer hunter’s 
dinner, perhaps
23 Holy Ohio city?
26 Bridal bio word
27 Sault __ Marie
28 “I think,” to a 
texter
29 Childlike race 
in “The Time 
Machine”
32 Learn thoroughly
34 Cutting in half, in 
math class
37 Seine summers
38 Lincoln or Ford
39 Love, in Spain
42 Nearby
47 Fidel who 
overthrew Batista
49 Aussie birds that 
don’t fly
50 San Francisco’s 
__ Valley
51 Diplomatic VIP
52 NBA tiebreakers
54 Sports team 
swaps
56 Attributed 
speaker of the 
circled words
60 Medical suffix
61 Sentry’s “Stop!”
62 Swiss peak in an 
Eastwood film 
title
66 Eye part
67 Oil cartel letters
68 Iced tea wedge
69 Icelandic poetic 
work
70 PC repair person
71 Avec’s opposite

DOWN
1 Suffers from
2 One of an 
inning’s three

3 Pitcher’s stat
4 Soothing cream
5 Carol kings
6 Hoppy brews, for 
short
7 Serious 
criminal
8 Portmanteau for 
a false ally
9 “Beat it, feline!”
10 Is remembered
11 Addictive 
narcotic
12 Oil cartel ship
14 Started the 
grass-growing 
process
21 __ me tangere: 
“Don’t touch me”
22 Place to park it
23 Ocean motion
24 Skip over
25 Age-old romantic 
adage
30 A single time
31 “__ it my best”
33 Graceful pond 
swimmer
35 “That __ fair!”
36 Fedora feature
40 Great Plains 
tribe

41 Deli breads
43 Pants, briefly
44 Someone 
who’s good, 
and obviously 
knows it
45 Skips, as class
46 Tel Aviv’s land
47 Sweet-talk
48 Got a smile 
out of
53 Suffix with land 
or sea

55 Spring zodiac 
sign
57 “Insecure” 
Emmy nominee 
__ Rae
58 Knighted actor 
Guinness
59 Draw with acid
63 ABC show for 
early risers, 
briefly
64 Long, long time
65 ICU workers

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FOR RENT
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puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com

Sudoku Syndication
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I have a confession to make: Last 
Friday was the first time I ever saw 
“Titanic.”
It was my first excursion on the 
RMS Titanic with ’90s Leonardo 
DiCaprio (“Inception”) and Kate 
Winslet (“Eternal Sunshine of the 
Spotless Mind”) in all their glory. 
It was the first time I ever saw Jack 
and Rose dance below deck, talk 
about their future together and spit 
over the railings. It was the first 
time I saw That Sunset Scene (you 
know which one I’m talking about). 
It was the first time I had ever 
heard Rose in the future recount a 
tragedy that none of her listeners 
could really grasp the severity of — 
and I don’t just mean Brock Lovett 
(Bill Paxton, “Aliens”) or Lewis 
Bodine (Lewis Abernathy, “The 
Name of God”). I mean us viewers 
in the audience, too. It was the first 
time I saw the Titanic sink. It was 
the first time I really understood 
why it hurt so much that the raft 
wasn’t big enough. It was the first 
time I heard “My Heart Will Go 
On” in its original context. 
I saw “Titanic” on Valentine’s 
Day, surrounded by elderly couples 
with their arms wound tightly 
around each other, crying quietly 
as Jack and Rose promised to never 

let go. As I watched the film, the 
coughs, sneezes and sniffles of 
Michigan in February faded away, 
and I found myself immersed 
in 1912 aboard the Titanic with 
characters I had heard about all my 
life but never really known. 
I knew the story, of course — or 
at least I thought I did. Jack. Rose. 
“I’m the king of the world!” The 
raft isn’t big enough. “My Heart 
Will Go On.” Screen fades to black. 
As it turns out, there is much, much 
more to this movie than I had 
thought. I didn’t really know the 
story until I watched it. 
There are some moments in 
movies that were surprising when 
they were first released, but as 
someone born in 2001, I grew up 
knowing my whole life. Darth 
Vader is Luke’s father. Haley Joel 
Osment could actually see dead 
people. And Jack Dawson dies. 
But here’s the thing. Tragedy 
is horrific when it takes you by 
surprise, but it’s worse when 
you 
know 
it’s 
coming. 
You 
watch “Titanic” and take in the 
extravagance of the beautiful ship 
with not enough lifeboats, knowing 
that it’s going to sink. You smile 
from your seat as you watch Jack 
and Rose fall in love, but your smile 
fades when you remember that 
their ending isn’t happily ever after. 
You see them, holding each others’ 
hands tightly as Rose lays on the 
raft and Jack remains afloat beside 
her, and can’t help but think maybe 

this one time I watch this movie, 
it won’t have the ending I know it 
will. But it does.
Last Friday was the first time 
I cried while watching “Titanic,” 
surrounded 
by 
other 
people 
saddened 
on 
Valentine’s 
Day, 
choosing to spend it crying on their 
partner’s shoulder (or in my case, 
my roommate Sophia’s). 
“Titanic” has always been one 
of those movies I never really 
thought I had to see. The ending 
wasn’t predictable, per se, but it 
was common knowledge. So I 
figured, why watch this sad movie 
with an ending I already know? 
Here’s why: “Titanic” teaches you 
something. Not about falling in love 
in three days or about spitting in 
Billy Zane’s (“The Phantom”) face. 
Not even about the Titanic sinking. 
It teaches you something about the 
people around you, the people you 
watch the movie with. That they’re 
important to you in a way that you 
can only understand when you’re 
reminded of just how short life 
is. It teaches you to never let go of 
them. It reminds everyone of their 
personal love story, not necessarily 
one of romance. Perhaps it’s 
familial, like Rose and her mother’s 
tragic relationship. Or maybe it’s 
friendship, like Jack and Fabrizio 
(Danny Nucci, “Crimson Tide”). 
Or maybe it is love. Whatever it is, 
“Titanic” reminds you to cherish it 
and remember how important it is 
to you before it’s too late. 

Love of ‘Titanic’ will go on 

PARAMOUNT

SABRIYA IMAMI
Daily Arts Writer

The 
opening 
scene 
of 
“Clemency” is an execution. A 
group of people gather around 
a prisoner as a medical worker 
places the IV into his veins that will 
deliver fatal drugs to his system. 
The room’s atmosphere is solemn 
and emotionless, but there is also 
a sense of urgency, a need to get it 
over with. The ticking of the clock is 
intertwined with the beeping heart 
monitor as the people standing 
around the prisoner wait for his 
death to be official.
This is the reality of Warden 
Bernadine 
Williams 
(Alfre 
Woodard, “Miss Evers’ Boys”), who 
oversees the executions of prisoners 
on death row. Williams has thrown 
herself into a routine when it comes 
to carrying out the death penalty 
to keep herself detached: using 
clinical terms like “procedure” to 
refer to executions, avoiding direct 
connections with inmates and not 
making any exceptions when it 
comes to protocol. Yet, when the 
opening execution does not go as 
planned, the warden’s routine is 
shaken, forcing her to confront the 
reality of her profession. Writer 

and director Chinonye Chukwu 
(“Alaska-land”) brings us this dark 
drama not just to tell us a sad story, 
but to give us a window into a reality 
that is present today, a glimpse into 
the feelings of helplessness that 
percolate within the people who 
carry out this process.
The audience is given little time 
to recover from the first execution 
before we move on to another one 

— that of Anthony Woods (Aldis 
Hodge, “Straight Outta Compton”), 
a prisoner on death row who was 
convicted of murdering a police 
officer. Despite media attention, 
the ambiguity surrounding his 
crime and the tireless efforts of his 
defense lawyer, Marty Lumetta 
(Richard 
Schiff, 
“The 
West 
Wing”), Woods’s execution seems 
inevitable. The only hope he can 

cling to is a chance for clemency 
— pardoning a criminal of capital 
punishment — from the governor.
While the pacing is erratic at 
times, its somewhat lengthy quality 
feels true to life, as the legal process 
is often slow and arduous. As the 
lingering emotional effects of these 
executions impact everyone in the 
prison, characters have different 
responses. Woods shuts down, 
becoming despondent over his 
impending death. Lumetta, despite 
many years as an attorney, plans to 
retire after Woods’s case, unable 
to find hope in other people’s 
decisions and inevitably watch 
another 
client 
die. 
Williams’s 
husband, 
Jonathan 
(Wendell 
Pierce, “Selma”), struggles to deal 
with his wife’s quiet despair as 
she becomes a shell of herself, her 
mental health becoming paper-thin 
over time. While off-duty, Warden 
Williams deals with her internal 
struggle by drinking excessively 
and sinking into herself, kept up 
at night by nightmares. But as 
soon as she returns to the prison, 
she resumes her impassive front, 
distress seen only through the 
small breaks in her façade: a twitch 
of the lip, an unfocused gaze, or the 
hint of a bitter tone in her words.

‘Clemency’ sheds light on 
dark realities of death row

KARI ANDERSON
Daily Arts Writer

FILM NOTEBOOK
FILM NOTEBOOK
FILM REVIEW

Clemency

State Theatre

Neon

Read more online at 
michigandaily.com

NEON

